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The purpose of this study was to investigate measurement equivalence of processing speed measures for different age groups. A structural equation modeling approach was used to investigate a measurement model and the factorial invariance between younger and older adults on speed measures. The analyses concurrently examined whether speed-related abilities dedifferentiate with increasing age. One hundred and forty-four younger and 105 older adults completed 9 measures designed to assess motor speed, alphanumeric speed, and geometric speed. Results indicated that although the number of factors and the factor loadings were invariant across age groups, the interfactor correlations, the variance-covariance matrices, and the unique variances differed across groups. Furthermore, a second-order speed factor seemed to explain much of the variance in the 3 first-order factors, although this higher order factor accounted for slightly more variance among the older group than among the younger group. The results suggest that there is sufficient evidence of measurement equivalence on the current speed measures across the 2 adult age groups and, in addition, provide evidence of dedifferentiation.

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This study was designed to investigate whether differential experience with and reactions to computers among adults of different ages impact on adult age differences in computer memory testing. Participants were 141 community-dwelling adults, aged 18 to 87. Computer experience, computer anxiety, computer attitudes, and computer self-efficacy were measured in addition to several demographic items. Participants also completed a working-memory test on a desk top computer. Age was positively correlated with computer anxiety, but was not correlated with computer attitudes. In addition, older adults had less computer experience and lower computer self-efficacy. Computer experience, anxiety, and self-efficacy significantly mediated the relationship between age and computer-tested working memory performance. The results lend support to a model of cognitive aging that emphasizes the role of ability-extraneous factors in accounting for some of the observed age-related differences in computer-tested memory.